"Dear me, I submit to you in every particular. If you knew what I have stood these last days--those terrible pains in the stomach----"
"For which those good meats and soups are to blame," interposed the doctor in cold blood.
"And that want of breath, that dizziness in my head----"
"Comes from the beer, to which you daily treat yourself, your own most regular customer. If you omit the beer, and limit your meals to what is absolutely necessary to sustain life--" then he began to count off a list of remedies that almost drove Herr Willmann wild.
"Why, Doctor, that is a veritable hunger-cure," lamented he. "It will put an end to me!"
"Would you rather fall a victim to your calling?" asked Hagenbach. "It is all right; but there, go off and leave me in peace!"
The patient sighed deeply and painfully. However, the doctor's faith-inspiring roughness must have won the victory over his love of good-living, for he folded his hands and looked up at the ceiling.
"If there's no help for it--in God's name!" said he unctuously.
The physician suddenly started, fastened a sharp glance upon him and then asked, wholly irrelevantly:
"Have you a brother, Herr Willmann?"